Power Players and Supermodels Converge at V.F.'s 2015 Tribeca Party

When co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal first conceived of the Tribeca Film Festival, in the months after 9/11, the idea was to give a beleaguered Lower Manhattan an economic boost—and an injection of cinematic swagger. On Tuesday night, guests gathered at the New York State Supreme Courthouse for a Vanity Fair cocktail party hosted by Graydon Carter, Ronald Perelman, and De Niro to toast the the festival’s 14th annual opening. And, for the first time since the fest’s inception, the rebuilt World Trade Center is operational and occupied, its lit-up spire just visible from the courthouse portico.

“It feels extraordinary. We’re finally back at Regal Battery Park,” Rosenthal said, referring to the theater that will serve as one the festival’s primary venues. “The first year we were at Regal Battery Park, we went in Hazmat suits.”

The guest list featured a cross-section of New York power players, fitting for a civic setting glammed up with hundreds of tea lights and lit up like a marquee. De Niro met guests at the top of the steps and, for a while, formed a sort-of extra column with fellow New York legend Harvey Keitel, and Governor Andrew Cuomo. Ivanka Trump chatted up Diane von Furstenberg. Manhattan media was represented by Charlie Rose, Barry Diller, James Dolan, Tom Freston, Jared Kushner, Gayle King, and Andy Cohen. Models Irina Shayk, Joan Smalls, and Constance Jablonski cut their usual imposing yet somehow still-fun figures. Brooklyn artist Dustin Yellin worked the press line in a very ladylike Thom Browne overcoat he borrowed from his date for the evening, Vanity Fair special correspondent Amy Fine Collins.

“It was just an improvisational inspiration,” he said, shrugging off a reporter’s suggestion that the coat might have been a little long for him. “I know; I can stand on my tiptoes.”

Festival judge Debi Mazar, a born and bred New Yorker, was tucked into a side table near the south bar. She’d recently moved back to town—to Brooklyn, this time. What had changed most since in the years since the festival’s debut?

“It’s completely gentrified, but instead of being angry, I decided that it’s modernism and the new people are coming and how great is it?” she said. “It’s the new wave of new families.”

Asked what had changed most about downtown since 2001, Vanity Fair contributing editor Fran Lebowitz, was blunt: “Real-estate prices,” she said without hesitation.

Von Furstenberg, sparing a second while she looked for husband Diller in the crowd, offered a more reflective answer.